Urban Planner: November 10, 2010

Urban Planner is Torontoist’s guide to what’s on in Toronto, published every weekday morning, and in a weekend edition Friday afternoons. If you have an event you’d like considered, email all of its details—as well as images, if you’ve got any—to [email protected].

These puppets know more about art movements than you do. Photo courtesy of Quality Slippers Productions.

Today in Toronto: Not Far From the Tree gets fruity, Elsa’s back (this time with more sexy), a musical girlfight (even sexier), and the puppet community questions the nature of art.

FUNDRAISER: Not Far From the Tree, Toronto’s own fruit-picking project, is seriously celebrating: they already harvested nearly twenty thousand pounds of fruit from 226 Toronto trees this year alone, and scored an Environmental Award of Excellence, an Urban Leadership Award, and a nod from Earth Day Canada. A great job done, but that was only a quarter of the city’s fruit harvest—the rest was left on the tree until Not Far From the Tree expand their reach. That’s where you come in: tonight’s fundraiser, Hand Picked, includes speakers Mayor David Miller and Chatelaine food editor Claire Tansey. Sample local food hors d’oeuvres by Jamie Kennedy and sip from the open bar. Delish! Shamba Space (48 Yonge Street, 12th floor), 6–9 p.m., $50.THEATRE: Actress Maja Ardal—perhaps better known as gossip queen Clara Potts from childhood fave Road to Avonlea—once portrayed Elsa, a precocious six-year-old in the smash hit one-woman show You Fancy Yourself. Fast-forward nine imaginary years, and the hair-teasing, gum-chewing Elsa is approaching fifteen and is obsessed with sex (like you weren’t) in The Cure For Everything. Elsa’s thrown headfirst into a world of rock n’ roll and women’s lib—it’s the free-love era—to ask the audience how much (if anything) things have changed. Our guess: except for the acid, not so much. Theatre Passe Muraille (16 Ryerson Avenue), 7:30 p.m. (through December 4), $25–$30.SPORTS/MUSIC: Yeah, you heard us. It’s a boxing-slash-song party tonight at Harbourfront Centre World Stage’s Voice-Box, a competitive concert in a boxing ring. The genre-crossing interactive performance blends musical talent with real fighting as it pits ladies against each other in the ultimate girly show. “If a woman is aggressive, she’s often sidelined,” explains composer Juliet Palmer. “But positive assertion is how we can act in the world, how we get things accomplished.” Boo-ya. Palmer and her boxing friends are doing just that and inviting you to come with—audience members, should your aggression get the better of you, can enjoy the lobby mini-gym and get punching. York Quay Centre, Brigantine Room (235 Queens Quay West), 8 p.m. (through until Sunday), $15–$35.THEATRE: Quality Slippers Productions is a quirky independent theatre with—oh yes—bizarre and innovative puppetry. They’ve just moved from Montreal to Toronto to launch their first full-scale puppetry production, for you, Emmy, a one-act play exploring the life of poet and puppeteer Emmy Hennings. Taking place in Zurich during WWI, the show plays like a cabaret as it incorporates archival material, original scenes, and absurdist puppetry to explore the founding of the Dada art movement. You know, the one with the urinal. Sure, but is it art? Find out tonight through Sunday. Lower Ossington Theatre (100 Ossington Avenue), 8 p.m., $20 ($15/students).